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Matter-Steam Line
Matter-Stream Lines Matter-Stream Lines are solid mediums that can conduct matter it as if it were light. This allows cargo and personnel to be conducted from one part of a ship to another along conduits hidden in the walls, and use one door to access the entire ship like an electron navigating a circuit. Power and Signals are also transmitted this way, acting as the perfect insulator, and combining all pipes and wires into a single universal utility. Matter-Stream Portals are obsidian black and glossy until activated, their surfaces being made of a solid material with the consistency of stone. Once enervated by a 1200-watt charge the surface becomes a fluid-like field of nanoscopic drones that encapsulate anything moving into the horizon and pull it in. The Portal Buffer doesn't activate until the traveller is fully encapsulated, detected by an intelligent computer recognizing the bounds of an object. If a Portal Buffer were to activate while an object is not fully immersed in the medium it would sheer in half on a molecular level. Matter can be held in the buffer of these lines like massive hard drives, allowing personnel or cargo to be stored in an extremely dense block of material that can survive extreme pressure and shock, as well as reducing their space requirements. They can also be used to “freeze” injured personnel until they can reach medical attention. Hard Storage rooms can be found adjacent to most Cargo Bays and Medical Labs. Medical Lab Hard Storage Blocks double as Life-Pods, often containing several door sized slabs that can store up to 1200kilos of mass. If this mass is exceeded, then the next item gets rebuffed to where it came from, as each item is intelligently stored in a layer of its own in the receiving buffer in order from first to last. If the Buffer is dumped, it must allow each layer to exit in order. Hard Storage Blocks have a consistency and tensegrity beyond diamond, surviving incredible blows until they are energized. Once energized they act the same as a Portal Buffer. People have been stored in Hard Storage Blocks for hundreds of years without ship power and rescued successfully, having no knowledge of the passage of time. If the Portal Buffer at the end of the Matter-Stream is left open to space, or if a stream is severed mid-transit, whatever was accelerated along the line exits at the speed it reached along the way, expanding in a straight line at near light speeds, vaporizing from the shock of re-integration. This is the principal behind the MAC canons. Matter-Stream Portals exist on the ship's outer hell as well, usually on Cargo Bay Modules. A Gravity Lens Spotlight hovers over the Portal, allowing materials and personal to be sent and received without creating weak-points or gaps in the Hull. To prevent the Matter-Stream Line itself from being a weak point, it usually coils around multiple reinforcing plates in a stack, which conveniently doubles the Cargo bay's insulation and damage resistance at the expense of weight. If a Matter-Stream Portal is shot, it has a remarkably low stress tolerance. It shatters much like volcanic glass in a radial web of fractures. A moment later the nanodrones activate and heat the surface, refreshing the Portal in a wave to restore its gloss surface in a few seconds. Damaged Portals are useless solid slabs. Severed Matter-Stream Lines are self-repairing, using several layers of smart, self healing insulation that borrows from Matter in the Cargo Bay to restore itself. What can't be fixed deploys small rail-drones with Nanolathes to fix the breach, which only takes seconds after an impact destroys the line. The Conducting Medium is a true mystery. While contained it appears to be a superliquid, head "filling" up from the Nuclear Furnace attached to the line. But when severed this material vanishes without a trace as if it was never there.